


The Gang’s All Here (keep it on the DL tho)

by knees_of_bees



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Character Study, Death Eaters, F/F, Flirting, Lawyer Hermione Granger, Mystery, Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28498290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knees_of_bees/pseuds/knees_of_bees
Summary: Former Death Eaters are meeting in secret, and Hermione is determined to get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately, she’s also been assigned as Draco’s lawyer, and Pansy Parkinson thinks she has a right to help.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. After the War

Coffee shuddered in her mug, small ripples splashing against the edge as Hermione’s hands shook.

“Some toast, love?” Mrs. Weasley’s voice felt far away. “A biscuit? You ought to eat something, there’s no telling just when the owl will come.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Hermione managed, eyes trained on the window. Last time she’d sat at the Weasley’s table anxiously awaiting mail, it’d been her O.W.L. results, but this time was different. This time, it wasn’t doubt that curdled her insides, merely anticipation. She knew she would get the job — they’d be foolish not to hire her — she simply couldn’t breathe normally until she received confirmation. 

With a screech, the bird swooped in. Her mug clattered to the table, coffee splashing onto the smooth wood as she grasped the envelope, still cold to the touch from the outside air, and stared at the wax seal with its crisp ‘M’ for Ministry. Her lungs filled with the warmth of the kitchen and the smell of breakfast as she took a shaky breath and broke the seal.

_Ministry of Magic_  
_Department of International Magical Cooperation_

_Ms. Hermione J. Granger,_

_We’ve reviewed your application for the diplomat position and are highly impressed. Unfortunately, we cannot accept you at this time. The mandatory St. Mungo’s report you enclosed in your application indicates that you suffer from PTSD which is simply not conducive for a rigorous position that involves regular international travel and forming productive interpersonal relationships for the furthering of peace and stability. Thank you for the time and effort you put into your application. We look forward to hearing from you in the future._

_Take care,_  
_Beatrice Evenmont_  
_Head of Department of International Magical Cooperation_

“You can’t be serious,” she breathed. The letter flitted toward the floor.

She’d given herself a year to grieve, to wake up shaking and unable to fall back asleep, to fear for someone’s life when they did so much as leave a room.

It hadn’t been that way at first. After the battle, she went back to her family’s home and made sure things were in order before setting off to Australia to retrieve them. Tears streamed down her face absently as she worked but she kept moving, kept functioning, running on what little adrenaline she had left until things were settled.

She could have apparated. Instead she boarded a plane, wanting to retrace the steps of Wendell and Monica Wilkins, the happy couple who never had a daughter. When she found them, she watched from a nearby table at the outdoor café, hiding tear stains and matted hair behind a cup of iced coffee, ice rattling as her hands shook. They seemed relaxed. She could leave; let them stay that way, spare them from the burden of a grief-heavy daughter, but she was selfish. So when the tip hit the table and they stood, she followed them to the car. That’s when it hit. She broke down in their arms on the hot pavement.

They landed in the U.K. and she barely slept, barely ate, her time split between her parents and the burrow, researching ministry positions and drafting applications but not sending them, not yet. Ron and Harry made her swear she’d give it time.

She and Ron kissed in her room, in his room, in the fields outside the burrow, bodies pressed together because they were alive, so wonderfully alive and that was worth celebrating. And maybe, if they kissed hard enough, they could forget just how many people didn’t get that privilege. He made sure she ate breakfast and lent her his sweaters. He held her hand under the table. He let her be messy and strong and hotheaded, loving her through it all, and she tried not to think about the doubt swirling in her gut every single time their lips met.

When she felt weak, Harry reminded her how she’d fought. When she felt useless, he reminded her how her brains had saved his life time and time again. When she felt like she was falling apart, he brought up the long, cold nights and tense mornings when she’d held them together. He had no patience for her self-pity; he saw her strength and didn’t let her forget it.

If sleep eluded her, she held mock job interviews with her reflection in the bathroom mirror. It felt strange, planning for a life that, just a few months prior, she didn’t know she’d get to live. She gave herself one full year to grieve, and only when it was up would she send in her application and start work. She’d start fresh. Apparently, that’s not how grief works.

The letter hit the floor. Ron clambered down the stairs and she was dimly aware of his familiar footsteps, his smiling voice, the way it sank swiftly into deep concern, his hand falling gently on her shoulder. She yanked away.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice breaking.

“‘Mione, they didn’t, they didn’t say no to you, did they? Er, Merlin, okay, listen, we’ll—“

“Quit it, Ronald. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.” She didn’t want nor deserve any more pity than ‘Beatrice, Head of Department of International Magical Cooperation’ had given her.

“‘Mione, you know— “

She whirled on him, brown mass of hair swooping over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be feeling sorry for yourself? Harry gets higher marks in Auror training. We all know it, and we know it drives you mad, so get off my back and throw your own pity party.” A pan clattered to the stove behind her. Ron’s mouth hung open.

“What?” she continued, barreling forward faster than her sensibilities could keep up. “You’re not even going to fight me on that?” He closed his mouth, shifting uncomfortably but still looking at her with that same damn concern on his face. “I thought I knew who we were. I was, I was the smart one but I can’t even get a job and—” _I was in love with you,_ she thought. But was she? Or was she a child grasping at what she thought love should be? “I’m trying to figure things out and, I think I just need… to not. Okay?” 

She’d felt dangerously close to breaking up with Ron for some time now, but every shred of logic in her screamed at her to stop because being with him was stable and simple. Maybe he wouldn’t catch it. Maybe she could switch topics and they’d move past it before he caught on to what she was thinking.

“You’re not…” his shoulders sunk. “Okay. Yeah, okay, no, I saw this coming.”

“You _what?”_

“You thought I’d be daft enough to think it would last?” She tried to read his expression but hit a wall. “This was bound to happen, ‘Mione, and whatever guy… I hope you and he have a swell time.” He clenched his fist then let it go, muscles tense. “You’re breaking it off, yeah? Well, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here to be your friend. So. That’s that, I guess.”

The air hung between them ‘til it turned stale; the girl with a dozen dictionaries crammed in her head couldn’t seem to find the words. This had been the last thing in her life that made sense, and she’d just squandered it. The letter crumpled under her sock as she left the room.

Upstairs, she grabbed clothes by the handful, nails digging into soft cotton, shoving things into her purple pouch. It was a rhythm she’d grown accustomed to as she moved from her parents’ to this room and back again, each time clinging to the foolish notion that by moving into a new room, she could leave her problems behind. Harry’s voice mingled with Ron’s downstairs. He knew the letter would come today, so he must have flooed in. She steeled herself as his footsteps echoed up the stairs.

He appeared in the doorway, surveying the mess of clothes on the floor and the purple bag held tight in her fist, and said “Plenty of extra rooms in Grimmauld Place.”

.•* ☾ •*ﾟ

They fell into a natural rhythm; she’d don long coats for early morning walks and when she got back, he’d be gone for work, a hot cup of coffee waiting for her on the counter. They traded off who made dinner and passed newspapers back and forth wordlessly by the fire. They shared sweaters. Somewhere along the line, she wondered if this is what love felt like. Silent conversations amidst comfortable coexistence were surely the signs of a happy couple, but it wasn’t romance any more than she and Ron’s desperation for closeness in the midst of war had really been romance. Relief washed over her at the realization.

One of her winding walks led her to an old muggle library. The young librarian’s long black waves smelt like cinnamon when she leaned over Hermione’s shoulder, asking about the history books she read, pressing her to try fiction, so Hermione dove into literature about dragons and castles and coffee shops, and the more she let the grief be, the less it kept her up at night.

If diplomacy wouldn’t take her, she’d have to infiltrate the whirring cogs of the Ministry through another route in order to enact change. She brainstormed over dew-damp newspapers, and time and time again, stories about wix being sent to Azkaban for life without fair trials caught her eye. She read up on the history of Wizengamot and learned more about muggle lawyers. When she wrote to the Ministry demanding they establish a system to offer court-appointed attorneys to their less fortunate victims, they obliged under the condition that she carry out the trial run, and she was thrilled. Not two months later, she’d made a career for herself.

.•* ☾ •*ﾟ

It was only the second day in her new flat when a stranger knocked on the door. She and her ink stained, quill-calloused fingers and burnt tongue from scalding coffee had just gotten home, had just slipped off her blazer and half-untucked her white button up, when a knock rudely interrupted her thoughts. She wasn’t expecting guests, not with takeout strewn across the table and boxes of books left to unpack. Anyone that _would_ be welcome could simply floo, but the Malfoy Manor case was occupying all of her brain space and she didn’t have any desire to host.

She had half a mind to lose. It wasn’t uncommon for Hermione to get tossed sticky cases. After all, she defended those without the means to pay for lawyers, and Former Death Eaters were among this lot seeing as most of them had been stripped of their fortunes for the sake of reparations. The Malfoys were no excuse. But never in these last five years had war criminals been suspected of doing the very thing that earned them that title: organizing themselves against muggles and mixed-blood wix. And yet here was the Malfoy Manor case, in which a group of ex-Death Eaters had supposedly convened to do just that, and _she_ was tasked with defending them. Defending Draco Malfoy, to be specific.

She’d like to consider herself forgiving; Hermione was a good person, and good people forgive. But it’s a lot easier to forgive an idea than to look someone in the eye and let go of closely harbored and well-founded animosity. When she looked Draco in the eye, all she felt was loathing, and she couldn’t bring herself to call him innocent.

The knock sounded again.

Huffing a sigh, Hermione shoved the takeout behind a box on the table, knocking a sauce packet onto the floor in the process. She pulled her hair into a loose low bun and opened the door, not bothering to disguise the concentration-turned-annoyance on her face.


	2. Unwelcome

A flapper-esque black bob, precise winged eyeliner, and red lips stood sleek in her doorway. Recognition clicked: Pansy Parkinson. Pansy, the girl who hung off Malfoy like a wet rag, who twisted words into pretty lies and spread rumors like a pyromaniac in a forest, who sunk a fist into Hermione’s gut and left deep magenta bruises.

Hermione glared. “What the hell are you doing at my flat?”

Pansy smiled coyly, slipping past her and surveying the room. “You live like this?” she asked, tone irritatingly playful. “Pity.”

“Not an answer,” Hermione said, slamming the door and getting between Pansy and the table.

Pansy glanced behind her at the takeout, gesturing at it with twirling fingers. “The competition down the street is better, but only if you’re desperate for something cheap and oily. I generally prefer real food.”

“And why would I want your help?”

“You do plan to defend him, don’t you?”

Hermione ground her molars together before answering. “It’s my job.”

“Perfect!” Pansy smiled, slipped past Hermione, sat on the table, and crossed her legs. “I’ll fill you in on what he’s been up to. It’s rather pitiful, honestly, which is perfect. You can use pity. Socially ostracized boy trying desperately to reform himself — you get the vibe, yeah?”

Watching Pansy comfortably swing her legs, Hermione dug a socked heel into the thin, hard carpet. “Right. Now. Care to fill me in on why you lot met up?”

“Immediately following the war, he was a wreck. And that’s saying something because he’s a wreck in general, right? But I mean _really_ messy—“

“Why did you meet up?”

“It took him a solid six weeks to—“

“Parkinson!”

“Hm?” Pansy smiled, and Hermione had to work to keep her voice level.

“Why did you meet up?”

“Furniture.”

“Excuse me?”

“Furniture. We were gathering furniture from the mansion to sell. He needs some cash.”

Pansy’s olive-toned skin glistened in the yellow light of the flat, features even, and if she was lying, Hermione couldn’t read it on her face. A chopstick rolled across the table in the silence. 

“Is that true?” Hermione asked.

“Does that matter? It’s the story you’ll tell.”

Hermione scoffed. She straightened her blouse, realizing only then that it was half-untucked and quickly shoving the fabric into her trousers, a move she immediately regretted upon seeing Pansy’s smirk. She was a professional, and she would be treated as such.

“I’m a lawyer,” she began, “and a successful one at that. I didn’t get here by weaving lies, if you can comprehend that, and I don’t plan to start now. If I am forced to defend your— th— Malfoy, I will do so fairly and honestly.”

Pansy trailed her gaze down Hermione’s figure. She laughed. Then she she slipped off the table, brushed her arm, and opened the door. “I’m glad we had this chat, love,” she said, and then she left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for a mini hiatus so I can focus on art and school! comments mean the world, though. <3


End file.
